Training to tackle the Taliban - and cooperate with allies (Feature)

By Can Merey Jul 13, 2010, 13:31 GMT

Imam Sahib, Afghanistan - The Afghan policemen do not seem overly excited by the prospect of going on tour with their American trainers this afternoon.

Outside in Imam Sahib, in the Kunduz province of northern Afghanistan, it's 45 degrees celsius. The local police chief delegates one of his sergeants and two patrolmen to go out, vastly outnumbered by their US counterparts.

The US military are moving increasingly into Kunduz to add to the work of German troops already there as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Taliban attacks are on the rise, yet Western nations want to bring their troops home.

Hence much emphasis is now being placed on training local police and soldiers to fight the Taliban and eventually keep the peace.

'Our goal is to make the police more capable of providing security in the province and to control more of the province,' Lieutenant Colonel Russell Lewis, commander of US troops in Kunduz province told the German Press Agency dpa.

Lewis sees the local police manpower as better than he had initially expected. 'But I'm not naive. Some are better than others,' he said.

The patrol moves out with the American platoon leader and the Afghan sergeant walking in the middle of the squad, with one US soldier and one Afghan policeman each spearheading the way on the left and right.

Captain Jeffrey Kornbluth explains the idea: If the well-trained Americans in the front notice something conspicuous they report to their lieutenant, who can then discuss what should be done with his Afghan counterpart. In case the Afghan forces who are familiar with the area notice something first, the procedure goes the other way round.

The task of training local police is not an easy one - US soldiers speak of 'challenges.' One of the goals of the Americans is to increase the trust of the population in a more professional police force - which until now has been widely perceived as corrupt.

'I anticipate that it is there (corruption), but do not know to what level,' Lewis says.

I think right now we are not close enough to know the truth. They are obviously not going to take a bribe in front of us,' he says.

US-President Barack Obama has sent 800 soldiers from the battle- hardened 10th Mountain Division to Kunduz in order to push back the Taliban in the province.

But in order to achieve their goals of rapid police training and establishing the security of the province, they must work together with the much less aggressive strategy of the German troops already there.

Germany has a mandate for up to 5,350 troops in the country.

The fighting power of the Americans leaves no doubt that they - if anybody - will be in a position to establish security in the region.

To get an idea of how much better than the German troops the US-troops are equipped, a look at the car park of the Forward Operating Base in Kunduz is enough: The rows of heavy armoured vehicles seem to go on almost to the horizon.

When a US-officer hears that the Germans defuse the much feared Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) of the Taliban by hand he at first thinks that this is a joke.

The Americans have special armoured road clearance convoys for the defusing of explosive devices, which now also support the Germans.

They also have radar instruments that can locate the spot from where missiles with which the German camp has been attacked for years are launched. And they are bringing the helicopters that are urgently needed to Kunduz.

When on a mission, the US-troops have a smaller administrative organization than the German Federal Armed Forces. This allows more soldiers to carry out their actual tasks. While at best half of the men and women from the German army camp in Kunduz leave the camp at all, up to three quarters of the American soldiers do so.

Most German soldiers spend four to six months in Afghanistan, the Americans stay for a whole year. This is more difficult for their private life but it gives continuity to the engagement.

Finally, the American soldiers have a reputation for pursuing a tougher course of action against the insurgents than the Germans do or are allowed to do.

A German soldier says that if his platoon went on a mission with the motto recently used by an American platoon - 'Fuck the Taliban' - 'then an appointment with the legal advisor would immediately be made,' the soldier says.

What US-soldiers are missing however is the knowledge of the North Afghanistan region and its immensely complex social structures. This learning has grown from contingent to contingent of the German Federal Armed Forces.

According to the battalion commander, Russell Lewis, the Americans operations are 'complementary' to those of the Germans - but so far they are hardly together with them.

All parties in the war in northern Afghanistan know that the next few months are crucial - including the Taliban.

'The enemy is not quitting. He knows that it's a critical time right now,' Lewis says.

While he is speaking, planning for the Taliban's next bomb attack has already been completed: Only a few hours later six suicide bombers storm into the building of an American company which implements the state-owned American development aid agency USAID's projects. They cause a bloodbath - in the centre of the provincial capital.